Of Love, And A Thousand Winters
by Watanabe Maya
Summary: Intermingling the past and the present. (No one will ever love you the same way that I used to.) \\KuroKagaMomo.


_I should really be studying for my first major math department exam but lolno here I am writing gay fanfiction angst instead hahahuhu._

University life is hard and life is crap if you're stuck in a course you despise with every fibre of your being, so I needed to turn my bitter frustrations into some sort of creative attempt of productivity. This is just a rambling kind of fic from my trash brain that I wrote because I just really needed to destress, nonetheless I hope you guys will enjoy it haha! It focuses on two relationships - a former KuroKaga that turned one-sided and a developing KagaMomo that soon ends up being established, and thus this fic mixes both past and future tense in order to differentiate the two. I also tried to emphasize the difference by keeping the past in italics and enclosing them in parentheses while the rest go on in regular font. I really enjoy experimenting, so I hope this attempt of mine still makes sense and ends up being enjoyable for you too (this isn't very happy though, like by 50% haha).

 **Disclaimer:** I still do not (& never will) own Kuroko no Basuke, unfortunately hahahuhu...All rights go to the beautiful brain of Tadatoshi Fujimaki-sensei.

* * *

 _(No one will ever love you the same way that I used to.)_

.

.

You'll meet her in the second spring of your college years, exactly three days after the eleventh anniversary of our first meeting.

"Hello, welcome to Starbucks," the barista will greet you cheerily from the counter. The door will chime upon your entrance.

"Uhm, hello," you'll answer back to the girl. Her hair is pink, her eyes carmine. She'll flash you what seems to be the warmest of smiles. You'll direct your sight lower to meet her gaze. Her tag reads _Satsuki_.

"Yes, hello," she'll repeat before gesturing to the line forming behind you. She'll cue you to make your order, lest it grow longer.

You'll request for one _Venti_ Caffè Vanilla Frappuccino. _(How ironic, I can't help but think dryly, that you've adopted that addiction from me. You've always said that mocha was the superior flavor, and you've been denying it ever since the first time we've met, but you eventually developed a taste for vanilla six months later, I know.)_ The people at the back proceed to make your drink, and you'll usher yourself to the waiting counter. When the barista – tall guy, navy blue hair, and a nametag read as _Daiki -_ hands the cup over to you, your grip will loosen, fall slack, and it'll spill.

"Oh shit, sorry," you'll apologize to him, profusely.

"Dude, what the fuck?" the taller man wants to shout, but restrains himself to muttering such curses under his breath. You'll still hear them, though.

"I'm so sorry…"

The girl named Satsuki will head over to your general direction from her spot in the counter. Damage control.

"Calm down, Dai-chan," she'll placate her coworker, before she directs her attention to you. "It'll be all right. I'm sorry about Aomine-kun, he's not the best at dealing with customers. Please wait for a moment."

It takes six minutes of mumbled apologies and angry glares from the blue-haired barista before you find another serving of Caffè Vanilla Frappuccino resting in your hands, sized _Venti_. The pink-haired barista will rest her hands on yours and tighten your grip around the cup.

"On the house," she'll explain with a laugh. "Be sure not to spill this time. Have a nice day."

 _(Your story starts fourteen months after ours ended.)_

.

.

You'll meet her again within the university halls. You've got exams two weeks from now, and your results from the mock test held yesterday was even poorer than the first. This time it will be in the library, and you're browsing through shelves for a good book – preferably Hubbard's fifth edition from the Pearson series – on Macroeconomics.

 _(I can only picture memories of us from where you'll stand, two aisles away from the beginning of our universe.)_

You'll see a girl's figure, clad in a mint green parka and a black skirt, tiptoeing to reach the topmost shelf, and your inner gentleman won't hesitate to help her out. You'll hover over her frame and grab the book with ease. It's Mankiw's seventh edition of the _Principles of Macroeconomics_. You'll hand it over and she'll thank you politely, before the sound of her voice warrants within you a sudden flash of recognition.

"Hey, you're that girl from Starbucks! What are you doing here?"

"I have a name, you know," she'll laugh. "It's Satsuki. Momoi Satsuki. I study here."

"Oh, right. Sorry, Momoi…san."

She'll recognize you as the guy who spilled his frap at the store four days earlier, and when you flush with embarrassment at the remark, she'll beam and tell you again that it's really all right. She'll prompt you to drop the honorifics since there's no need to be so formal here, and when she asks you about your business, you'll explain your situation.

"I major in Economics. I could teach you if you'd like," she'll offer, and your desperate-Marketing-student-heart will leap with joy at the mercy of being met by the kindness of her good soul.

"Yes, I would like that," you say with a grateful bow. "Very much."

 _(This was the place where we confessed to each other, at the spot exactly six meters away from where you are.)_

.

.

You will pass your exam with flying colours. This wouldn't have been possible if not for that girl Momoi. You'll offer to bring her to the amusement park to celebrate, your treat.

"Thanks," she'll say. "I'd love to."

 _(I remember eight am on the ferris wheel. You kissed me in the morning, two days short 'til I turned sixteen. It was a Saturday, perhaps one of the greatest in my fifteen-year-old life then; the team outing celebrating our victories from the last winter season, the moment you conclusively grabbed the initiative and first took my lips.)_

.

.

One thing leads to another, and you'll soon find these dates with the girl Momoi as a regular part of your schedule. She'll be your girlfriend now, after all – four years later and still going strong.

.

.

"Are you free this Friday? I've got tickets to the premiere screening of a movie, my friend Ki-chan is going to be in it!"

"When and where will it be?"

"Five pm, at Kinshicho," she'll reply, and you'll blush at the memory of us seven years prior.

 _(Three-oh-nine pm, Kinshicho, on a Thursday.)_

"Can you make it, Kagamin?"

"Sure thing."

 _(That was the moment I finally decided to return the favor.)_

.

.

 _((I wanted you.))_

 _._

 _((I wanted us.))_

 _._

 _((I wanted everything.))_

.

.

After the movie, you will bring her to the park, where the two of you rest seated on a dingy, old, wooden bench. It is painted in a cheap yet fresh layer of yellow, and its timber slabs are aged, but its coat chips off at the corners to reveal faint traces of dirt, grime, and a faded, mottled shade of madder red.

 _(Do you remember?)_

You'll let go, dropping your gaze as you fumble in your pocket. Almost noiselessly, under your breath, you'll mutter a curse. She will laugh at you for this, though you will only manage a faint yet fond sigh in response. Soon, your hands will reach for something - a box, in your grasp. It is velvet. Blue.

 _(This was where we had laid seated, hands held -_ nervously _\- innocently, on a humid summer night in the cusp of August underneath the shadows of the metropolitan skyline._

 _You leaned into me so impossibly close, and with a breathy tickle in my ear, you whispered, telling me that you would still feel the same way you do now as you would in the future if and when we grow old together and transform into stinky senile seventy-year-old men and you wouldn't mind if we ended up as wrinkly recluse fools with twenty-seven or maybe a thousand cats living in a secluded house on top of a hill as long as it withheld a decent enough wi-fi connection so we could at least be wrinkly blogger recluse fools with a generous source of internet-based income to support our lifestyle with twenty-seven or maybe a thousand cats living in a secluded house on top of a hill._

 _And we laughed at that, really loudly too, before you looked at me in the eye and asked if I had been serious about you or if perhaps I would have ever felt the same way.)_

You will cup your hands 'round her cheeks and wipe away a stray tear from the corner of her eye, a rubbing motion with the pad of your thumb. You will look at her fondly and smile, crinkling your eyes as you go down humbly on one knee.

 _(And if I could, I would answer you again. Even now—)_

"Will you…" you'll begin at last, with your heart pounding in your chest and your palms clammy with sweat but before you can finish the rest of it she'll cut you off first in the quickest most fleeting of milliseconds to ever occur in the passage of time because—

 _(I do.)_

"I do," she'll say with her eyes misting and voice alight and her heart laced with the silver of the clouds. "I do, of course, oh my god, yes, I do, thank you yes yes _yes I do_ I do I absolutely _do_."

Then you'll smile.

 _(And I'll still feel the same way in the future as I did before when I went on a date with you for the very first time, amidst sweat-slicked hands and nervous palms and thrumming pulses of awkward seventeen year olds in the throes and thresholds of ragged uncertainty and rough, fraying borderlines. You were sitting close to me on this dingy, old, wooden bench, where the timber slabs had aged and the paint had chipped off and its once rich scarlet had turned into something like a faded, mottled shade of madder red. I wonder if you still remember, because there's no way that I could ever forget.)_

"I do want to marry you."

 _((This was the place where I had loved you the most.))_

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 **thank you for reading, please leave a review. they seriously make me super duper happy i am not exaggerating it means a lot to be able to hear from you guys. labyu all ty ty hope you all have a nice day**


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